Tuts (Iconic Chicago Music Venue/70's and 80's/Tuts Chicago)

TUTS — Chicago Promo Tee

For a few short years, TUTS was one of those Chicago clubs where you could walk in and see a band just before everyone else figured out they were important.

Operating from 1979 to 1984, TUTS became a fixture of Chicago’s emerging punk, new wave, post-punk, and alternative music scene. Its best-known home was at 959 W. Belmont, near Sheffield, in the former Quiet Knight space—right in the middle of a neighborhood that was becoming increasingly strange, creative, and wonderfully nocturnal.

The booking history is ridiculous for a club that lasted only a few years. The Cramps, Bauhaus, Black Flag, The Fall, Echo & the Bunnymen, Killing Joke, Naked Raygun, The Replacements, Violent Femmes, Missing Persons, Los Lobos, Richard Thompson and plenty of others passed through TUTS. It wasn't interested in one particular sound so much as whatever was interesting enough to put onstage.

And TUTS was part of a particularly great moment in Lakeview nightlife. Punk kids, musicians, artists, gays, new wavers, and assorted Chicago weirdos were increasingly sharing the same few blocks. Berlin opened across Belmont in 1983, while places like Neo and Medusa’s helped make the surrounding neighborhood a destination for anyone who wasn't particularly interested in fitting in.

TUTS closed in 1984, making its run surprisingly brief for a club that still turns up again and again in people's memories of Chicago music.